Representatives of Midleton businesses meet to discuss group response to floods

Vivienne Clarke

Representatives of up to 100 businesses and organisations met in Midleton this morning to discuss a group response to the crisis facing the town following last week’s flooding.

Dr Mike Thompson told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that there was “a lot of energy in the room” as businesses, trades, professional services attended the meeting at which there was “standing room only”, he said.

There were also a lot of emotions in the room, he added. “The emotions ranged from anger, frustration, resilience, pragmatism and a great sense of altruism as well. There was a wealth of experience in the room. There's this logic, this passion, and we essentially distilled an agenda.

"Obviously, this is just a one off meeting and we have kind of short term, medium and long term goals. And so short term is that the time is now cleaning up and we have 60 days to Christmas. Midleton is open for business. We are resilient. We would like people to come and support our town. It is a lovely town.

“We also are very appreciative of course we are of all those who helped our community, the sense of community and bonhomie from the sporting clubs, from the volunteer groups, from all the agencies which are still in evidence this morning.

“And there is also an acknowledgment that the central funding yesterday was very gratefully received, we hope that progress will be efficient and quick now. There were also some novel ideas about rates moratoriums, tax reductions, revenue deferment payments.

"But ideally what we are looking for is we have six years before we realistically will have a flood defence plan in place. We are looking that if this happens again, the government would underwrite any further occurrence until that time.”

Dr Thompson said that his general practice is operating at about 25 percent capacity at present with the priority being acute cases. It will be two weeks before they are back to 100 percent capacity.

While he welcomed the reported revised upper limit of €100,000 in assistance, his costs were likely to be much more.

Dr Thompson was hopeful that he and other businesses in Midleton would start drawing down sums in the next few weeks, but the worry was that they paid the same insurance as every other trader in the country, but they still did not have (flood) cover.

“We are just unlucky that we do not have a flood defence scheme, so we just are not covered for flood and this is not our first flood. In 2015 there was a less devastating flood. And promises were made on that occasion that this would not happen again.”

Dr Thompson warned that the town would not survive if there was another flood like last week. “We need a new flood defence plan.” Businesses were looking at reinvesting, taking out loans, dipping into their life savings, going to banks, using whatever grants they could get so they could reopen.

“I could be talking to you again, unfortunately, next week, next month and next year with the same story. And that for most people it's a chilling effect.”